


Children's Crusade

by ancestrallizard



Series: Kitchen Interludes [3]
Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, features my own player character oc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-24 20:47:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20020786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancestrallizard/pseuds/ancestrallizard
Summary: Post 4th Singularity.Roman tries to solve an equipment bug before the next rayshift. He's very stressed, and nothing that's about to happen will make him any less stressed.





	Children's Crusade

**Author's Note:**

> more of this

5 DAYS UNTIL NEXT RAYSHIFT

Roman really, really, _really_ didn’t want to be Chaldea’s acting director.

Not just because if he wasn’t, it would mean that Marie and other more-qualified people would still be alive. If he wasn’t director, he could have a second to himself again.

The base was metaphorically, and far too-often literally, on fire. When Lev Lainur sabotaged the base, he triggered detonations both in its heart and in its other vital organs – the generators, food storage, water storage, the main infirmary, and too much else. The human toll was even worse. Of all the staff who lived and worked there, roughly half as many were still left alive, some so grievously wounded that they still couldn’t work even weeks after the attack. One hundred and twenty doing the work of three hundred meant that a lot of people had to start doing things they’d never trained for and weren’t prepared in the slightest to do. 

Case in point, Roman himself.

For every problem that he managed to put to rest, two more took its place. He began to crave medical questions because everything else left him feeling increasingly helpless. More than solutions to the facility’s catastrophic damage, people wanted reassurance; about if their food would last, about the possibility of restoring the world and saving their families, about humanity’s last master, about everything under the nonexistent sun. He gave answers that might have been serviceable at the moment but always felt less and less so whenever he thought about them later. 

He yearned for the days when he played hooky in abandoned rooms. When he was alone there was no one to let down. He could just eat sweets and listening to music to his heart’s content. (And, speaking of which, he still had an unopened CD to listen to. The artist wasn’t as good as Magic Mari, because who could be? But he still wanted to take his time to listen to it).

If running Chaldea was tearing him one way, guiding the rayshifts that could preserve humanity itself was tearing him the other. Every day he felt more and more like he was being slowly ripped in half.

This was a long, somewhat roundabout way of saying that Roman was a very busy man and it took him a while to finally check on Belle’s vitals.

Or, to be more accurate, it took him a while to examine them closely. He looked at the numbers during missions, of course, but it was always just a quick glance to make sure Belle hadn’t gotten stabbed in the middle of a battle or something. No alerts ever went off, and Belle always said they were fine whenever someone asked. Even if he thought they weren’t telling the entire truth, it was forgotten in favor of the thousand other things on his mind, about nine hundred of which had to do with the present danger Mash and Belle were facing. After each rayshift, he was too busy seeing to a languishing Chaldea and preparing for the next mission to check it like he always intended.

When Mash and Belle returned from London around three in the morning, he let them go off to bed without a word. Exhaustion was plain on both their faces, and there was only a week until the next rayshift. They needed to rest as much as Roman needed to go do director-y things.

The doctor happened to look up from his monitor to see them go (he meant to ask Mash if she could meet anytime in the upcoming week, just to see how she was doing), and he happened to see Belle stumble. It was small, almost nothing, but it made him think that they must have been tired than they let on. He would check their vitals from the end of the missions just to be safe – facing a demon would be taxing on anyone. 

But Chaldea’s issues, only barely held back by the locked control room doors and the well-earned terror of da Vinci, demanded his attention, and by the time he remembers Belle, it’s five days until the next rayshift. 

But he doesn’t worry. There’s plenty of time.

=

He sinks into his desk chair and takes a long gulp of hot, bitter coffee as he opens the files from the recent mission. He would have preferred something sweet, but caffeine was more important. He can’t remember the last time he slept, can’t know when he’d next get a chance to. 

Roman almost looks forward to the check. It’s a permissible excuse to keep to himself for a few more precious minutes. If anyone asks why he was late to the next meeting, he can just say that he was being thorough.

He stifles a yawn as he scrolls through the records. And scrolls. And scrolls. Then goes back to the beginning and scrolls through them again. And then a fourth time, as his coffee cools and his lie slowly becomes a horrible truth.

No matter how many times he reads it, Belle’s vitals won’t make sense. All of the numbers are way, way wrong, not just during the Solomon fight, but throughout the entire mission. Their blood pressure is nearly unreadable, definitely low enough that they should have noticeably been in shock, and their body temperature varied wildly from day to day, some times abnormally low and at others beyond feverish. According to the records, late in the London mission, Belle’s heart might actually started beating off rhythm in the middle of the night, once stopping entirely.

Roman flicks back through older reports, adrenaline spiking painfully through his system and putting the caffeine stimulants to shame. It was all more of the same – no alerts ever flashed across his screens, but on the missions the master’s body temperature, pulse, respiratory rate, and everything else the program measured, while not as impossible as in the London mission, were still very wrong. And whatever the error was seemed to be getting worse.

Is the machine broken? He opens Mash’s vitals. Monitoring them is nearly a formality given the strength and endurance afforded a demi-servant, but he still keeps track for safety’s sake.

He leans back, running a hand through his hair. Mash’s vitals are fine. Perfect, even. They all spike where expected and fall where expected, and in-between they’re all completely normal. 

So the program probably isn’t broken, as it’s monitoring Mash fine. Maybe Belle’s pod is broken?

He relaxes. Yeah, that’s probably it. A malfunctioning pod is bad, of course, but it isn’t impossible to fix. There’s still time to talk to an engineer and get it up and running again. He takes a gulp of cold coffee. Things are fine.

4 DAYS UNTIL NEXT RAYSHIFT

Things are not fine. 

The next however many hours, Roman can’t tell, are spent traversing what feels like the entirety of the compound multiple times (because most of the elevators are still busted), and talking to what feels like every remaining staff member several times over.

As a doctor and technically former medical director, there’s not a lot he can do but offer reassurances and try to ensure no one’s plans or resource usage overlap too much. The only thing he can meaningfully contribute to is a discussion regarding a blooming flu outbreak.

Roman defuses and mediates and directs one thing after another until he’s dragging himself back to his room, and only remembers after he opens the door that he still hasn’t checked Belle’s rayshift pod.

He sends a single, longing glance to the soft chair he sleeps in more than a bed these days, before sighing and leaving. Just one more little fix.

As it turns out, the pod can’t be fixed because it isn’t broken. Two of the maintenance team that he’d asked to help comb through every inch of it and can’t find any issues. There aren’t any in Mash’s, either. (He asks them to run a general checkup on both, to make this seem more like routine upkeep).

He learns the pods inside and out, whether he wants to or not, because the older of the pair likes to talk as he works. Roman learns that it’s cutting edge technology, that it can keep people in stasis as well as promote light healing, that it’s personalized to each user, et etcetera. He learns everything except what’s wrong with it.

Double goes for the monitoring program. The programmer, a young man who also works as an assistant in several research labs and, recently, as a fledgling mechanic, looks up at him from the monitor. “It’s running smooth as silk. Not a thing wrong with it.” 

Roman smiles and hopes it looks convincing.

3(?) DAYS UNTIL NEXT RAYSHIFT

He works, and the rayshift issue never leaves his mind while he does. He means to keep working, on the problem and Chaldea both, but as it turns out there’s a limit to how long someone can persist on coffee, milk, and the sweets stashed around his office before every new drop of sugar feels like acid on his tongue.

He makes the long trek to the mess hall (entirely on foot, again, because the elevators are still busted). The thought of any staff in the mess hall crowding him to ask even more questions almost makes him hesitate, but his fear proves fruitless. The mess hall is virtually abandoned aside from a few people silently lingering at a table near the empty windows. 

He slips through the kitchen doors in the back of the hall, hopeful for some spare leftovers. “Hello?”

The kitchen is deliciously warm, and the air smells good enough to make his mouth water. A few staff members on duty are working, one cleaning dishes, a few peeling a large stack of potatoes. To his surprise, stirring a large pot in the back of the room is humanity’s last master themself.

“Belle!” Roman calls out as he approaches. “Hi! I didn’t know you had kitchen shifts.”

Belle is humming, but they stand straighter when the doctor calls out, like a daydreaming student being surprised by a teacher. “I don’t, but I asked if there was anything I could do while I’m here. They said I can help get a head start on dinner. Unless you need me for something else?” There is a large cutting board next to the stove, covered in a rainbow of vegetable skins and pieces, alongside some spices and used knives.

“No, no, everything’s fine,” Roman says, and he hopes he sounds un-panicked. “Actually I was wondering if I could just..?”

Belle ladles him a bowl of the soup (and gives him a spoon, thankfully, because he was not above eating it with his hands).

It’s good, warm and creamy and full of potatoes and carrots along with some kind of grain, maybe barley. He isn’t usually a huge fan of vegetables but in the moment the whole thing feels like manna from heaven.

He talks as he eats, one of his many talents that was proving to be completely useless when running an institution. “Thanks! Haven’t had real food in ages.”

“Why not?” They ask, almost as an afterthought, before catching themself. “Unless, you can’t tell me. Can you not tell me? I apologize, I didn’t mean to ask –”

“What? No, it’s fine.” He says, scraping up the last of the vegetable pieces. Why did this kid have such a thing about asking questions? “I got distracted trying to figure out a rayshift equipment bug. Or, maybe it’s a spiritron bug? I’m still not sure.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

Roman wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Something with the part of the program that monitors vitals. Mash’s are fine, but yours keep coming up weird. This is really good, did you have any?”

Their eyes flick over to him for a moment. They turn off the stove and cover the pot. “No, I’ll make something for myself later. And, yes, that is strange, but I’m sure you’ll find out what’s causing it.”

2 DAYS (IS IT 2? YEAH, 2 SOUNDS RIGHT) UNTIL NEXT RAYSHIFT

But he doesn’t think can. Between a few precious hours of sleep, the issue with the program becomes his top priority. The next rayshift is coming up fast, and they can’t afford any more malfunctions. If it isn’t the pod, and it isn’t the program, what else can it be?

Da Vinci stares at him over the top of her glasses. “It’s Belle. Obviously.”

“What? No, that’s not it.” Roman leans against one of the many tables in her workshop and only barely manages to not knock some model over. 

Da Vinci still glares as much as if it had fallen down anyway. “ It could be. You’ve discounted an entire realm of possibility because it doesn’t fit within your worldview.”

The doctor rubs the back of his head. “I mean, I just saw them yesterday. Or, earlier, depending on what day it is right now. If they felt that bad, they would have said something.”

“How do you know for sure?” da Vinci pushes. “How long have you know each other, really? Maybe Belle just doesn’t like going to the doctor. Or they might not even know what’s happening to them.” 

Roman wants to refute it, but he can’t find anything to refute it with. He had assumed Belle was fine. Maybe because malfunctioning equipment is the easiest, least holy-shit-we’re-so-screwed possibility. (Also, because if someone routinely had a body temperature of over sixty degrees Celsius, he assumes they’d say something eventually).

The inventor turns back to her workbench. “Just go ask. You’ll see I’m right and you can thank me later.”

He still doesn’t want to think da Vinci’s right, but he does need to consider every option. They were all running out of time, and he was getting more and more agitated for every hour this didn’t get solved. He has a bad feeling, almost a hunch that things are even less-right than usual.

The master isn’t in any kitchenettes, or the break room, or the mess hall, or the main kitchen. He does find Mash there, though, along with with the Caster with the blue hood and staff. She tells Roman that Belle had just left to go rest in their room. He heads over, trepidation dogging his heels.

Roman knocks twice on their door, hard, hoping they aren’t asleep yet. “Belle?”

No response. He knocks again. And again, nothing.

He’s considering just coming back later when he hears a muffled thud through the door, like something heavy falling off a shelf. No other sounds follow.

The bad feeling won’t leave. He pulls on the door, and finds it’s unlocked. He’ll open it a bit, just to check, and he’ll see that things are fine and he will then apologize profusely and ask to come back again another time.

But the half formed apology dies in his throat when he opens the door to see Belle lying motionless on the floor.

Everything – surprise, fear, panic – retreats to the back of his mind as cold, dependable training takes the fore. 

He rushes over, carefully moving them from their side to their back. Their eyes are closed but their breathing is even and unencumbered, and their skin didn’t look clammy, all good signs. “Belle? Belle, can you hear me?”

They open their eyes, looking around in confusion before squinting up at him. “Wh- Roman? What’re you doing here?”

“I was going to ask– never mind, that’s not important right now. Did you hit your head when you fell? Do you think you lost consciousness at all?”

They draw away from his hand on their shoulder and rise, somewhat unsteadily, to their feet. “No, I’m – I’m fine.”

Roman is thoroughly unconvinced. “Can I ask what I came here to ask, then?” He can maybe get some answers while also watching for any lingering effects of their collapse.

They nod.

Roman doesn’t know how to start, so he jumps blindly into the deep end.

“Is there something you need to tell me?” He asks. “About, your health, or how you’ve been feeling lately? Because, like I said, your vitals keep showing up really weird. I can’t find anything wrong with the rayshift equipment or any of the programs, but I still haven’t asked you yet. I didn’t think I had to, since anyone walking around with vitals like that is – is – “

“ – Impossible.” Belle finishes. 

And wrapped in that word is the answer to the strange vital readings and sudden fainting spell and the thing that’s been keeping him up for a day and a half, but he still can’t _see_ it.

They never said anything going forward. If waiting wasn’t going to help…

“Belle? Do you know what’s going on?”

Their fingers toy with the edge of their shirt, and their brow furrows, as if they’re being torn between two equally unpleasant options. “I – We –I get sick a lot. Sometimes it flares up.”

“But, being sick doesn’t explain…” Being a walking paradox, he thinks but doesn’t say.

Belle sighs and sinks on to the edge of the bed, staring down at the floor. They look like they’re about to be reprimanded or something. Why would anyone stall so much about not feeling well? 

“Is there anything else you can tell me?”

But they’re silent, so silent that he thinks they aren’t going to speak after all. He’s almost done finalizing a new approach when the dam finally bursts.

“My family,” they begin, “Always wanted to make a name for themselves in the magus world. But they didn’t have great innate magic, or fortunes, or any meaningful connections to more notable lineages.”

They pick up some speed as they go, folding themselves into the story like it was an old blanket in winter. “They couldn’t marry into better families, so they started changing themselves. They used what magic they had to alter themselves and their children, trying to make them better magi, or trying to create any changes that could be useful in the future. They used the sciences, too – surgery, radiation exposure, gene editing, anything that they might have a chance of helping. But it just made us sick.

“A lot of illness have come from that, but a lot came from grafting, too. Do you know what grafting is?”

“Of course.”

They shake their head. “Right, of course you’d know. I apologize.”

Roman feels where the conversation is going, and he doesn’t like it. “What did they graft?”

“A little bit of everything.” Belle answers. “Dead magus, their own or strangers, animals, magical creatures, or at least, creatures they thought were magical. They learned early on how to make the grafting heritable, instead of something that only changed one person, in the hopes that if it didn’t change the altered, then their descendants might be improved. Nothing ever worked the way it should have, though. Not even that.”

“Wait, so – you’re not all human?”

Immediately he wants to snatch the question back and stuff it out of sight. It’s the only explanation for some of the numbers he saw, but it’s also not the most sensitive way he could have asked. 

But Belle doesn’t give any indication they mind. “I don’t know for sure. I don’t think I can be.”

Roman feels vaguely sick. This kind of thing wasn’t uncommon among magus, not at all, but it was never pleasant to hear. “Are – alterations – still made?”

Belle doesn’t say anything, but their downcast expression is answer enough.

They’re both silent for a moment, before Belle continues. “So,” they say, “the experiments’ side-effects have built up over the years, and sometimes they flare up. Birth defects, chronic diseases, no magic, those kinds of things. In my case, I’m prone to getting sick, a lot, and sometimes my body kind of – stops working right. I don’t know why it happens, or how to fix it.” They glance off to the side, and Roman thinks their breath hitches for a second. “But I’m pretty lucky. Some – some people die before getting this far at all.”

They clear their throat. “Sorry. I did a lot of research about it for a school project, but I wasn’t allowed to turn it in. I guess I always wanted a chance to tell it.”

They finally finish speaking, and silence chokes the small room like a poisonous fog.  
Roman takes stock of the situation. Humanity’s last master, in addition to possessing stunted magical circuits, also possesses tenuous health that could go south in the immediate future with no warning signs he would recognize. 

He fights down an emotion that looks too much like panic. Information. Information is good. If he just has enough information, he can figure this out.

“Is food part of it?” he asks.

“Um. Yes, actually. How did you know?”

“I just realized I’ve never actually seen you eat anything.” One very insignificant mystery solved, then. “Is your illness related to why you fainted?”

They nod. “I fall asleep suddenly, sometimes, or faint. I usually feel it coming, so handling hot or sharp objects is never an issue. This time…” they frown, trailing off. “I don’t know why I didn’t feel it this time.”

They glance up, and must see something in Roman’s expression, because they rush to follow with, “But this wasn’t that bad! It didn’t hurt like before, and I didn’t loose consciousness this time, so –“

Their mouth shuts, so quickly he nearly hears their teeth snap together.

But not quickly enough. “’This time?’ Have you lost consciousness in Chaldea before?”

They look away, not saying anything, the answer as loud as if they’d shouted it. 

“Why didn’t you say anything? About fainting, or being sick, or, any of this?”

They look more and more like they want to burrow through the floor. “It’s normal.”

“Fainting is normal?”

“Yes.” They say at length, and it sounds like it pains them. “It might not be good, but it’s normal. And, it’s. It’s not something you talk about. You handle it by yourself. I didn’t want the missions jeopardized because you thought I couldn’t be put in danger, and I hoped nothing would flare up while I was here, and it did, and I was supposed to manage it, and I was, but…”

They trail off.

“Has the condition been getting worse, since you’ve started the rayshifts?”

They stay silent.

Roman takes a breath through his nose. If it was their normal, it explained why the system hadn’t said anything – It must have calibrated for it. If they get out of this in one piece he’s going to have words with the designer.

He can’t say he isn’t angry, because he is, even if the feeling’s closer to frustration than anger. The entire base, and all of humanity with it, was already in a tight spot, and Belle had just throne another wrench into the breaking system. It’s an issue to say the least.

But when he looks at them, sitting on the edge of the bed, staring down at the floor again and looking like the want to disappear, he can’t see an issue. He sees a scared kid, barely done with high school, one who he increasingly realizes might mistake ‘mad about the situation’ with ‘mad at you, specifically, and with your failure’.

Getting angry won’t fix anything. He breathes out through his nose again, makes sure he looks calm, and takes a seat on the edge of the bed beside Belle, careful to give them enough space. They glance up, startled. 

“I’m not angry at you.” He clarifies up front. “I’m really not. Promise. But going forward I want to see if there’s anything we can do to protect your health on future missions.”

They look – less sad, at least, so that was good. Roman sees their eyes up close for the first time. They’re a light brown, almost hazel color.

“What do you want me to do?” Belle asks.

Get somewhere safe and see a real doctor and never go home again, Roman wants to say. But they can’t even consider going home, and nobody else can either, not until all the singularities are corrected. And to do that he’ll have to keep sending Belle through hell and back again, no matter how they feel.

“I’m not sure yet,” Roman answers, “But I just want to learn more about this, and see where to go from there. You can work with me, or I can find other doctors if you’d prefer. Also, maybe talk to Mash and the other servants about anything you might need, so it doesn’t catch anyone by surprise on the field.”

They hesitate for a few answering. “Okay.”

He’s glad that that doesn’t require a drawn out discussion, at least. For now. Only time would tell if they actually went through with it.

“I won’t risk the mission again,” Belle says, back straighter, and for the first time he sees some of the mettle he’s only heard on the communicator when they’re on a mission and staring down an opponent. 

He rubs the back of his head. “Well, I mean, that’s good too, but…”

Maybe it’s just that he’s worn out, or more tired of all of this than he lets on, even to himself, but for once he lets saving of all of humanity fall to the wayside for a minute. “I want to help _you_ , too. I mean, if you want help. Short or long term. This, it just sounds like a heck of a thing to go through alone.”

Humanity’s last master appears struck dumb for a moment. “I’ll think about it. Thank you, doctor.”

Roman smiles and stands up, stretching his arms above his head. “Well! That was. A lot. Can we meet tomorrow morning in my office? We can talk more then. Do you get enough rest between missions?”

Belle gets up as well. “Do you?”

Their hands flies up to cover their mouth, but Roman just laughs for the first time in a while. “Fair enough! How about this – if you try to rest more between rayshifts, I’ll do the same.”

The corner of their mouth quirks up, an almost smile. “That sounds good.”

1 DAY UNTIL NEXT RAYSHIFT

“Okay, so this one isn’t her best, lyrically, but it’s still super catchy, I know you’ll like it.”

Roman plays the next song and sits back to listen.

There isn’t enough time to get everything that he wants done before the next rayshift, but there’s still enough time to meet with Belle and start talking about how to cope with the missions. His best plan at the moment, all they had time for, was for the master to keep staying away from pitched battle as much as possible, and to tell him if they thought their condition might be worsening.

Belle was about to leave when they asked about the unopened CD nearly buried under a pile of papers, which led to Roman gushing about the artist, which led to him playing Belle some of the idol’s other music.

His eyelids feel heavy, but he knows there’s little danger of falling asleep – the mission to potentially kindle a new fan was far more important.

The master leans forward in their chair, posture intent as if listening to a lecture. Mash, who’d come to find Belle when they never left his office, frowns. “Roman, please stop making Senpai listen to your music.”

“Hey! I’m not making them listen to anything, Belle asked first.”

“I doubt Senpai asked to listen to four songs in a row.”

“You can’t just listen to one, they build on each other! Four is the minimum you have to listen to for it to make thematic sense.”

Belle sits back. “No, I… I think I get it? I think I get it. It’s not bad, actually.”

Roman smiles, even as Mash sighs. “You corrupted them.”

Still, it doesn’t stop her from offering him some of the sweets Belle recently taught her to make. Roman isn’t sure what they’re called, and they’re lopsided, but the ones he’s eating are soft and sweet so he isn’t going to complain.

While he eats, Belle examines the treats instead. “Mash, these look great!”

Roman doesn’t know if they told Mash about their condition; he assumes so, since she doesn’t react when Belle doesn’t take any. The two talk, instead. All at once the scene crystalizes in Roman’s heart; the raspberry sweetness of the fresh dessert, the synth music playing on his tinny computer speakers, the sight and sound of Mash and Belle together, talking, alive, and healthy.

He still doesn’t know what he’s doing, not really, but for both their sakes, and for the sake of moments like these, he’d keep walking his path, wherever it would lead.

**Author's Note:**

> The title made more sense for the earlier version of the story but im attached now bc historical reference. also give it a listen on youtube its by Sting its a nice song
> 
> The irony of being a chimera named after a hero most famous for killing the chimera is not lost on belle
> 
> ancestrallizard.tumblr.com
> 
> twitter.com/DVLblues


End file.
